Into a pair of arms.
"I had hoped you'd be happy here, Miss McCall," Kraft Gerding said. Orison struggled to release herself. She broke free only to have her wrists seized by two Earmuffs that had appeared with the elder Gerding. "It seems that our Pandora doesn't care for spiders," he said. "Really, Miss McCall, our little pets are quite harmless. Were we to toss you into one of these tanks...." Orison struggled against her two sumo-sized captors, whose combined weights exceeded hers by some quarter-ton, without doing more than lifting her feet from the floor. "... your flesh would be unharmed, though they spun and darted4 all around you. Our Microfabridae are petrovorous, Miss McCall. Of course, once they discovered your teeth, and through them a skeleton of calcium5, a delicacy6 they find most toothsome, you'd be filleted within minutes."
"Elder Compassion7 wouldn't like your harming the girl, Sire," one of the earmuffed sumo-wrestlers protested.
"Elder Compassion has no rank," Kraft Gerding said. "Miss McCall, you must tell me what you were doing here, or I'll toss you to the spiders."
"Dink ... Dink!" Orison shouted.
"My beloved younger brother is otherwise engaged than in the rescue of damsels in distress," Kraft said. "Someone, after all, has to mind the bank."
"I came to bring a message to Dink," Orison said. "Let me go, you acromegalic apes!"
"The message?" Kraft Gerding demanded.
"Something about escudo green. Put me down!"
Suddenly she was dropped. Her mountainous keepers were on the floor as though struck by lightning, their arms thrown out before them, their faces abject8 against the floor. Kraft Gerding was slowly lowering himself to one knee. Dink had entered the spider-room. Without questions, he strode between the shiko-ing Earmuffs and put his arms around Orison.
"They can't harm you," he said. She turned to press her face against his chest. "You're all right, child. Breathe deep, swallow, and turn your brain back on. All right, now?"
"All right," she said, still trembling. "They were going to throw me to the spiders."
"Kraft told you that?" Dink Gerding released her and turned to the kneeling man. "Stand up, Elder Brother."
"I...."
Dink brought his right fist up from hip-level, crashing it into Kraft's jaw9. Kraft Gerding joined the Earmuffs on the floor.
"If you'd care to stand again, Elder Brother, you may attempt to recover your dignity without regard for the difference in our rank." Kraft struggled to one knee and remained kneeling, gazing up at Dink through half-closed eyes. "No? Then get out of here, all of you. Samma!"
Kraft Gerding arose, stared for a moment at Dink and Orison, then, with the merest hint of a bow, led his two giant Earmuffs to the elevator.
"I wish you hadn't come up here, Orison," Dink said. "Why did you do it?"
"Have you read the story of Bluebeard?" Orison asked. She stood close to Dink, keeping her eyes on the nearest spidertank. "I had to see what it was you kept up here so secretly, what it was that I was forbidden to see. My excuse was to have been that I was looking for you, to deliver a message from Mr. Wanji. He said I was to tell you that the escudo green is pale."
"You're too curious, and Wanji is too careless," Dink said. "Now, what is this thing you have about spiders?"
"I've always been terrified of them," Orison said. "When I was a little girl, I had to stay upstairs all day one Sunday because there was a spider hanging from his thread in the stairway. I waited until Dad came home and took it down with a broom. Even then, I didn't have appetite for supper."
"Strange," Dink said. He walked over to the nearest tank and plucked one of the tiny pink creatures from a web-bridge. "This is no spider, Orison," he said.
She backed away from Dink Gerding and the minuscule10 creature he cupped in the palm of his hand. "These are Microfabridae, more nearly related to shellfish than to spiders," he said. "They're stone-and-metal eaters. They literally11 couldn't harm a fly. Look at it, Orison." He extended his palm. Orison forced herself to look. The little creature, flesh-colored against his flesh, was nearly invisible, scuttling12 around the bowl of his hand. "Pretty little fellow, isn't he?" Dink asked. "Here. You hold him."
"I'd rather not," she protested.
"I'd be happier if you did," Dink said.
Orison extended her hand as into a furnace. Dink brushed the Microfabridus from his palm to hers. It felt crisp and hard, like a legged grain of sand. Dink took a magnifier from his pocket and unfolded it, to hold it over Orison's palm.
"He's like a baby crawdad," Orison said.
"A sort of crustacean13," Dink agreed. "We use them in a commercial process we're developing. That's why we keep this floor closed off and secret. We don't have a patent on the use of Microfabridae, you see."
"What do they do?" Orison asked.
"That's still a secret," Dink said, smiling. "I can't tell even you that, not yet, even though you're my most confidential14 secretary."
"What's he doing now?" Orison asked, watching the Microfabridus, perched up on the rear four of his six microscopic15 legs, scratching against her high-school class-ring with his tiny chelae.
"They like gold," Dink explained, peering across her shoulder, comfortably close. "They're attracted to it by a chemical tropism, as children are attracted to candy. Toss him back into his tank, Orison. We'd better get you down where you belong."
Orison brushed the midget crustacean off her finger into the nearest tank, where he joined the busy boil of his fellows. She felt her ring. It was pitted where the Microfabridus had been nibbling16. "Strange, using crawdads in a bank," she said. She stood silent for a moment. "I thought I heard music," she said. "I heard it when I came in. Something like the sighing of wind in winter trees."
"That's the hymn17 of the Microfabridae," Dink said. "They all sing together while they work, a chorus of some twenty million voices." He took her arm. "If you listen very carefully, you'll find the song these little workers sing the most beautiful music in the world."
Orison closed her eyes, leaning back into Dink's arms, listening to the music that seemed on the outermost18 edge of her hearing. Wildness, storm and danger were its theme, counterpointed by promises of peace and harbor. She heard the wash of giant waves in the song, the crash of breakers against granite20, cold and insatiable. And behind this, the quiet of sheltered tide-pools, the soft lub of sea-arms landlocked. "It's an ancient song," Dink said. "The Microfabridae have been singing it for a million years." He released her, and opened a wood-covered wooden box. He scooped21 up a cupful of the sand inside. "Hold out your hands," he told Orison. He filled them with the sand. "Throw our singers some supper for their song," he said.
Orison went with her cupped hands to the nearest tank and sprinkled the mineral fishfood around inside it. The Microfabridae leaped from the liquid like miniature porpoises22, seizing the grains of sand in mid-air. "They're so very strange," Orison said. At the bottom of the tank she thought she saw Ben Franklin again, winking23 at her through the bubbling life. Nonsense, she thought, brushing her hands.
Dink took her to the elevator and pressed the "Down" button. "Don't come up here again unless I bring you," he said. "The Microfabridae aren't dangerous, despite what my brother told you, but some of our processes might involve some risk to bystanders. So don't take any more tours above the fifth floor without me as your guide. All right, Orison?"
"Yes, Dink."
The elevator stopped. "Take the lady to her office," Dink told the bowing, earmuffed operator. "And Orison," he said, just before the door closed, "I'm really not a Bluebeard. See you this evening."
Dink Gerding, wearing an ordinary enough suit, well-cut, expensive, but nothing extraordinary for a banker, called for Orison at seven. He'd look well, she thought, slipping into the coat he held for her, in a white uniform brocaded with pounds of spun gold, broad epaulettes, a stiff bank of extravagantly-colored ribbons across his chest; perhaps resting his right hand on the pommel of a dress saber. "Dink," she asked him, "were you ever in the Army?"
"You might say I'm still in an army," he said, turning and smiling down at her from that arrogant24 posture25 of his. "I'm a corporal in the army of the gainfully employed; an army where there's little glamor26 but better pay than in the parades-and-battles sort. What makes you ask, Orison?"
"I'm flattered," Dink Gerding said, holding open the lobby door for her. "The car's just around the corner."
"I met your brother, Kraft, earlier today, just before he and the Earmuffs caught me up on eighth floor," Orison said. "He's no Texan, that one. A Junker, maybe. I'm afraid I don't much care for your brother, Dink."
"To be my elder brother is Kraft's special misfortune," Dink said. "I understand he was quite loveable as a boy. Here's our transportation."
The car was a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith28, splendidly conspicuous29 beside the curb30 of the Windsor Arms, reducing that nobly-named establishment by contrast to more democratic proportions. The ubiquitous Mr. Wanji, liveried in a uniform nearly as ornate as the one Orison had visualized31 for Dink, only his earmuffs clashing with the magnificence of his costume, sprang from the driver's seat, raced around the limousine32 and stood at attention holding the door for Orison and her escort. The front door of the Rolls was marked, she observed, with a gold device of three coronets. At the center of the triangle they formed was the single letter "D."
The Rolls negotiated the city streets with the dignity of the Queen Elizabeth entering a minor33 harbor. "I thought you bankers aspired34 to the common touch," Orison remarked. "I expected you to come for me in a taxi, or perhaps a year-old Ford35 you drove yourself."
"Wanji is a better driver than I. So I have him drive me," Dink explained. "We each do the work we're trained for. I assist Wanji in balancing his checkbook, for example. As for this car, it belongs not to me, but to my family. My family owns most of the toys I play with." He paused. "I've been thinking, Orison, of acquiring a most valuable property for myself alone."
"A nice little seventy-meter yacht?" Orison inquired. "Or the island of Majorca, perhaps?"
"Something even grander," Dink said. "You, Miss McCall."
"But, Dink!"
The Rolls glided36 to the curb. Wanji jumped out and snapped open the door. "Sire!" he said, and saluted37 as Dink disbarked. Orison took Dink's hand and stepped to the curb, acknowledging Wanji's bow to her with a princess smile. She'd come a long way from the secretarial pool.
The doorman of the restaurant, instructed as to the importance of these clients by their tableau38 at the curb, ushered39 Dink Gerding and Orison McCall into the presence of the maitre d'. When the doorman had been rewarded with a crackling handshake, the headwaiter led them through the crowd of groundlings as though they were accompanied by fife and drums. The table to which he bowed them, while not the most conspicuous, was without doubt the finest the management had to offer. The Reserved sign was swept aside with a gesture that indicated that there were no reservations where Mr. Dink Gerding was concerned. Mr. Gerding justified40 the maitre's confidence in him with another green-palmed handshake.
"Dink," Orison whispered across the table. "That was a fifty-dollar bill you gave him."
"Yes, it was," Dink admitted. "I felt that fifty was enough."
"Quite enough," Orison assured him.
The wine-steward, wearing a chain that could have held a tub to mooring41, absorbed Dink's instructions with the air of a chela attending the dying words of his guru. The two waiters poised42 themselves reverently43 at his shoulders, waiting the revelation of his order. "We'll begin ..." Dink began.
"I'd not advise lobster," Dink said thoughtfully. "I'm afraid that lobster won't agree with you this evening."
"Very well, feminist," Dink said. He turned to the waiter at his right. "The lady will have a lobster." He turned to the left. "As for me, a saddle of venison, and such accessory furniture as you may choose to accompany it." The waiters bowed and retreated.
"Why do you insist on being boss, even after banking-hours?" Orison asked.
"Being boss is not my nature, but is my training," Dink said. "It seems to me, Orison, that you American women resent the dignity of being served by an adoring man."
"I prefer dignities to be more democratic," she said. "Why, in any case, should you be exercised by my choosing lobster for dinner? My digestion46 is my own affair, isn't it?"
"Your question," Dink said, resting his elbows on the table, "requires a two-part answer. Imprimus: everything you do interests me, Orison, inasmuch as you are my future bride. Please make no comment at this point. Allow me to enjoy for the moment the male privilege of unimpeded speech. Secundus: I once wished to be a doctor, had not my career been chosen by my father. I still pursue the study of medicine as a hobby. I didn't wish you to order lobster because I'm certain that you'll be unable to enjoy lobster."
"I've eaten it before," Orison said. "Except for the engineering difficulties in getting through the shell with all those little picks and nutcrackers and nail-clippers, I had no trouble to speak of. Dink, are you a foreigner?"
"What makes you think I may be?" he asked.
"The crest47 of your car, the earmuffs on most your staff at the Bank and the fact that you seem to think a woman's opinion nothing more than a trifle. There's a beginning," Orison said.
"What's wrong with earmuffs?" Dink demanded. "Everybody wears earmuffs."
"Not everybody," Orison said. "Not in April. Not bank officials. Not indoors, in any case."
"Must report this to the Board," Dink said, taking a notebook from his pocket and scribbling48. "Must find alternative. No earmuffs indoors."
Perfect, Orison thought, near tears. He's perfect. He'd sit astride that milk-white charger like a round-table knight49, sturdy and lean and honest-eyed. Dink is perfect, she thought, except only that he's insane.
Dink tucked his notebook back into his vest-pocket. "If I were a foreigner," he asked, "would it make any difference to you?"
"Your nationality should concern me as little as my diet concerns you," Orison said.
"You said should," Dink pointed19 out. "That means that you are concerned with me. Therefore, I will formally invite you to marry me." He held up his hand as Orison began to speak. "I warn you, Orison, there are only two answers possible to my proposal. Only Yes or Some day."
"What if I said no?" Orison asked.
"I'd interpret it as Some day," he said, and smiled.
"You know nothing about me," Orison protested.
"But I do," Dink said. "I know you're good. I know that you've fallen half in love with me, and I entirely50 in love with you, in this half-day in April that we've known each other."
"No," Orison said, gripping tightly the edge of the table.
"That means, Some day," he said.
The lobster arrived in post-mortem splendor51, borne on a silver tray, brick-red, garnished52 with sprigs of parsley and geranium, served with the silver instruments designed for his dissection53 and the bowl of baptismal butter. "Oh ..." Orison said, turning her eyes away from the supper she'd selected. "It's horrible!"
"You've no appetite for lobster?" Dink asked.
"I'd as soon eat boiled baby," Orison said, pressing her napkin against her lips.
"Take it away," Dink instructed the waiter. "The lady will have the same order as I." The crustacean, red but undismembered, was again borne aloft by the waiter to be returned to the scene of his martyrdom. "Try a little of the wine, Orison," Dink suggested, tipping a splash of the Riesling into her glass. "It will clear your head."
She sipped54. "It helps," she admitted. "What do you suppose happened to me, Dink? It's as though all of a sudden I'd become allergic55 to lobster."
"In a sense you are, darling," Dink said.
"Such a strange thing," she said.
"Don't let these strange things worry you, Orison," Dink said. "Think this: for everything in the universe, there's an explanation. If you understand it or not, the explanation's still there, curled up in the middle of the mystery like Pinocchio in the belly56 of his whale. Just have faith in the essential honesty of the universe, Orison, and you'll be all right."
"A comforting philosophy," Orison said. "I can't imagine an explanation for my sudden distaste for lobster, though."
"Such things happen," Dink assured her. "I have a friend, for instance, who holds life in such reverence57 that he eats only vegetables. Isn't that strange? And he worries, this very good friend of mine, that perhaps vegetables have souls, too; and that perhaps it is no more moral to destroy them for his food than it is to roast and ingest his fellow animals."
"So what does this friend of yours eat?" Orison asked.
"Vegetables," Dink said. "But he worries about it. He's now proposing to confine his diet to cakes made from algae58. His argument is that if vegetables have souls, algae have very small souls indeed; and that they suffer less in being eaten than would, say, a cabbage or an apple. His guilt59 may be numerically greater, eating algae. But it will be qualitatively60 less."
"Has this micro-vegetarian friend of yours thought of psychotherapy?" Orison asked.
"Often," Dink said. "But he maintains that he's much too old to pour out his mind to a stranger; too set in his patterns to change. He fears most of all, he says, that he might be made uncomfortable in new ways."
"Do I make you uncomfortable in a new way?" Dink asked.
"You're strange," Orison said. "Your Bank is fantastic. All in all, this is the most peculiar62 day I've ever lived."
"I promise you, Orison, that someday you'll understand why the sight of lobster made you ill this evening, why so many of the people at the Bank wear earmuffs, why I seem foreign. You'll understand the work of the singing Microfabridae and you'll meet Elder Compassion; you'll know why Wanji was excited about the escudo green; and someday soon, this most of all I promise you, you'll love me, and be my wife. Hah! Here are the comestibles. Let's talk of topics less vital than love and earmuffs. Let's talk of the weather, and Mr. Kennedy, and the orchestra."
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
flecks
|
|
| n.斑点，小点( fleck的名词复数 )；癍 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
spun
|
|
| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
seething
|
|
| 沸腾的，火热的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
darted
|
|
| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
calcium
|
|
| n.钙(化学符号Ca) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
delicacy
|
|
| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
compassion
|
|
| n.同情，怜悯 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
abject
|
|
| adj.极可怜的，卑屈的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
jaw
|
|
| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
minuscule
|
|
| adj.非常小的；极不重要的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
literally
|
|
| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
scuttling
|
|
| n.船底穿孔，打开通海阀（沉船用）v.使船沉没( scuttle的现在分词 )；快跑，急走 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
crustacean
|
|
| n.甲壳动物；adj.甲壳纲的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
confidential
|
|
| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
microscopic
|
|
| adj.微小的，细微的，极小的，显微的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
nibbling
|
|
| v.啃，一点一点地咬（吃）( nibble的现在分词 )；啃出（洞），一点一点咬出（洞）；慢慢减少；小口咬 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
hymn
|
|
| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
outermost
|
|
| adj.最外面的，远离中心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
pointed
|
|
| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
granite
|
|
| adj.花岗岩，花岗石 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
scooped
|
|
| v.抢先报道( scoop的过去式和过去分词 )；（敏捷地）抱起；抢先获得；用铲[勺]等挖（洞等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
porpoises
|
|
| n.鼠海豚( porpoise的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
winking
|
|
| n.瞬眼，目语v.使眼色( wink的现在分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
arrogant
|
|
| adj.傲慢的，自大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
posture
|
|
| n.姿势，姿态，心态，态度；v.作出某种姿势 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
glamor
|
|
| n.魅力，吸引力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
infantry
|
|
| n.[总称]步兵(部队) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
wraith
|
|
| n.幽灵；骨瘦如柴的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
conspicuous
|
|
| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
curb
|
|
| n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
visualized
|
|
| 直观的，直视的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
limousine
|
|
| n.豪华轿车 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
minor
|
|
| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
aspired
|
|
| v.渴望，追求( aspire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
Ford
|
|
| n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
glided
|
|
| v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
saluted
|
|
| v.欢迎，致敬( salute的过去式和过去分词 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
tableau
|
|
| n.画面，活人画（舞台上活人扮的静态画面） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
ushered
|
|
| v.引，领，陪同( usher的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
justified
|
|
| a.正当的，有理的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
mooring
|
|
| n.停泊处；系泊用具，系船具；下锚v.停泊，系泊（船只）(moor的现在分词) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
poised
|
|
| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
reverently
|
|
| adv.虔诚地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
lobster
|
|
| n.龙虾，龙虾肉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
amendment
|
|
| n.改正，修正，改善，修正案 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
digestion
|
|
| n.消化，吸收 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
crest
|
|
| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
scribbling
|
|
| n.乱涂[写]胡[乱]写的文章[作品]v.潦草的书写( scribble的现在分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
knight
|
|
| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
entirely
|
|
| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
splendor
|
|
| n.光彩；壮丽，华丽；显赫，辉煌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
garnished
|
|
| v.给（上餐桌的食物）加装饰( garnish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
dissection
|
|
| n.分析；解剖 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
sipped
|
|
| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
allergic
|
|
| adj.过敏的，变态的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
belly
|
|
| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
reverence
|
|
| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
algae
|
|
| n.水藻，海藻 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
guilt
|
|
| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
qualitatively
|
|
| 质量上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
mused
|
|
| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
peculiar
|
|
| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |